The news of what at first seemed very like a French defeat under the walls of Susa, and a desire to witness the preparations for the coming Kairwán campaign, induced me to undertake a twelve hours’ journey thither by sea, a few days after the French tricolour floated over the Tunisian standard on the Tunis citadel. The white-walled town, which covers the side of a hill sloping gently towards the shores of the Mediterranean, can boast of an historical past of some importance. As the Roman Adrumetum, it was the capital of a rich and extensive province, and a great Roman road stretched from its walls across the site of Moslem Kairwán to Tebessa, in Algeria. During the past three centuries Susa certainly bore the brunt of the aggressive piracy of its Turkish masters, and was ten times bombarded by the French, Venetian, and Spanish fleets. But somehow or other it always managed to rise again from its ashes, and is still the capital, not only of the small district immediately surrounding it, but of the whole of that fruitful and cultivated zone of land which borders on the sea for nearly 200 miles between Cape Bon and Sfax, and which is usually described as the Sahel. Five weeks before the native governor had surrendered the keys of Susa to Colonel Moulin, and the town, which had so often defied the fleets of France, and Spain, and Venice, passed without a blow into the possession of the French troops. Since then the garrison has been very materially strengthened, and the time has been spent in active preparation for the coming campaign, and in very frequent reconnaissances with the warlike Arabs of the interior, who seem determined to dispute the passage of the French across the hills covered with olive groves, which for a distance of ten or twelve miles separate the coast from the sandy plain, in the middle of which stands holy Kairwán. Susa possesses a population of about 10,000 souls within its walls, and a sufficiency of mosques, religious colleges, and schools. The fortifications are certainly in better repair than those of any other town in the Regency, but ten years ago the present Bey sold all the brass and bronze cannons they contained to be broken up as old metal in Marseilles and London. The guns still there are useless. Besides the _enceinte_, Susa is defended by a fort on the sea-shore, called the Kasr-el-Bahr, and the whole city is dominated by the Kasbah, the view from which, looking seawards, is of almost Neapolitan beauty. As we have seen in a previous chapter, Susa underwent a siege as late as 1864.